The Son Rising

(The Gospel lesson for this sermon is found in the book of Matthew, Chapter 28:1-10.)

Pastor Stan Larson

Central Presbyterian Church, Russellville, Arkansas

March 23, 2008

In the early church, as a way to greet one another, kind of secretly at times, but also to bolster their feelings as they were being persecuted, they would say to one another as when we began our worship, “He is risen” and the response would be, “He is risen, indeed”.  Let’s see if we can do that now. 

Pastor: He is risen!

Response: He is risen indeed!

Well, that was a very good response.  Now we’ve heard our choir and our young people as they have rejoiced and gotten us in the mood for Easter; and that is wonderful.  But when we think back to that first Easter, when we think back to the women as they walked to the tomb there was not a lot of great joy.  As they went to the tomb, after waiting a couple of days to get past the Sabbath and the other waiting that they needed, you can imagine that their feet kind of drag.  They were going to the tomb because they were supposed to go to the tomb.  There were no women from Jesus’ family there, so Mary Magdalene and the other Mary said, “We need to go. We need to be there as Jesus’ family because he was our friend, our teacher, our rabbi; and we need to go.  It’s our responsibility to go and to do these things.”  But there wasn’t a lot of joy.

They had hoped that wondrous things would happen with Jesus and his ministry, his message; and now he was dead.  They were simply going to do what needed to be done.  To put spices and to wrap the body and to do all the things that in the hurry of the Friday when they had put him in the tomb, they could not do.  They could not come forward to do that.  And so, you can imagine, walking, quietly; even if they were talking, it was most probably quietly.  And then as they came to the tomb, the angel of the Lord appeared and rolled the stone away and sat upon it; the guards were struck dumb, and the women understandably were afraid.  Typically, the first words out of the angel’s mouth, were, “Do not be afraid”.  How many of you hearing those words from an angel would no longer be afraid; you know, you are still going to be afraid.  You just know you don’t have to be.  It’s not doom for you, but it’s still awesome to be in the face of an angel. 

And then they are reminded of the things that Jesus had told them.  Scriptures say that Jesus told the disciples at least three times, three times that they remembered, that all of these things were going to happen—that he was going to come to Jerusalem, that he was going to be arrested, convicted and crucified, then on the third day rise again.  Now typical of most of us, when the disciples heard that he was going to go to Jerusalem and be arrested, they quit listening because they didn’t want to hear anything else.  They probably had never heard, literally, that he was going to die and be raised on the third day.  They just heard he was going to be arrested; it was the end of all of their plans.  Their plans were for Jesus to be successful and for them to be successful along with him, to follow on his coat tails to the White House.  No, No, that’s the candidates that we’re hearing in the news these days.  We want to follow along. But they assumed the same thing; that all the success for Jesus was going to mean      

 success for them, even though Jesus kept saying, “It doesn’t mean that. That’s not why I am here”.  They kept hearing that and it was the death of all of their dreams.

 But the women came and they were told to go and tell, to go and tell the disciples to go and begin to spread the good news.  And as they left the tomb, they left with fear and great joy.  Great joy that Jesus was raised, but fear because you know the disciples are going to say, “You know it just a bunch of women.  Why are we supposed to go and listen to them? They don’t know anything; their word isn’t even accepted in the law courts”.  But the women were told to go and do that.  Jesus even appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary in the Gospel of Matthew, and affirmed again their message.  But we know as we know the rest of the story as it goes on, that even that evening on that first Sunday, on that first day of the week, the disciples were still in the upper room, afraid; even as the Gospel of John says, even after Peter and the beloved disciple John came and looked in the tomb and saw that Jesus was gone, they still didn’t believe.  It took a while for the joy to take heart and live and grow in their hearts because they weren’t expecting it.  They didn’t expect to be joyful on that day.  They knew that someone who was so vastly important to them was gone.  And now they get the word that he has been raised.  They weren’t looking for Jesus to be raised.  Yes, he had said it, but they really weren’t looking for it.

As I traveled here this morning from Benton, coming early (I’m a morning person) and I was coming for the early worship service.  As I traveled I was looking to see if the sun was going to come up out of the sky as I was coming.  It didn’t while I w as driving; it did after I got here because the sun is up.  But you know you look back and you’re waiting for the sign that the sun has risen.  It hadn’t for me.  It hadn’t for the disciples.  They were beginning to see signs that the sun was coming up, that something new was happening.  They were seeing the dark sky that had been around them, lighten, and something new coming on the horizon; but they weren’t sure what it was.  And so, in the early church as they were persecuted as they continued to spread that good news, they said to one another that He is risen! Then they responded, “He is risen indeed,” trying to support and strengthen one another.  We see in the first reading in Acts, Peter, who on that Thursday night, had denied his Lord; Peter along with all the disciples who had deserted their Lord and had gone their own way, who time and time again, even after the resurrection, were found huddled together in fear, in the upper room; here is Peter giving this wondrous sermon to a crowd of people, Peter who was tongue tied most of the time, or said all the wrong things, now saying all of the right things.  It takes a while for that joy to come alive.  We have to be looking for that to happen.  Instead of looking, we, well we come to church because we have to.  We come to church and do things because it’s our responsibility.  That’s what the women came for on that first Easter.  They weren’t expecting to be joyful.  They weren’t coming expecting to see all their friends and others, and good things happening.  They were simply coming because they had to. 

Now you never do that do you?  Did you ever just come because your parents told you to do it or that you have to come because you have some responsibilities? We all get there.  It happens to all of us; and we need that joy to come alive in our lives.  Again, to realize that as Jesus was raised on that first Easter, Jesus promised that he would come again.  We too are like those disciples, not know for sure what’s coming but knowing that we are supposed to be looking for the Son rising.  We are supposed to be looking for Jesus to come again. 

You know that’s why the churches are arranged the way they are. Same thing for cemeteries; if your church is a well laid out church, that’s East and that’s West.  You know why; there’s supposed to be doors back there so that when the sun rises it will come through the doors and into the church, so that as the sun rises it will come inside.  I’ve been in a couple of churches, one especially, when at an Easter sunrise service’ they had a stained glass window in that wall and to have that stained glass window illuminating your Easter sunrise service is wondrous.  Jesus is to come in because we expect the Son to rise.  Cemeteries—if your funeral director is doing the right thing, the feet are at the East, the head faces the West, why?  So that in the resurrection of the body, you can sit up and look and see the Son rising.  Everything that we do in the Church is geared on waiting for and looking for the Son to rise, our Son, Jesus Christ.  We are to be saying, “There is the Son rising”.  That’s our call.  That’s what we are to be about.  Looking and waiting and hopeful and joyful and saying, Yes, it’s going to come; we are just here to be looking for where the Son is rising.

 And just as on that first Easter when Jesus said to the women, “Tell the disciples, but tell them that I am going before them at that time to Galilee.  We are to go where Jesus is at.  We are supposed to be looking to where the Son is rising and go there, not just sit in our own little place and say, “Well, okay, the Son is over there, but I don’t really want to go there”.  Jesus kept leading his disciples to places they didn’t want to go.  He led them to sinners and tax collectors, and to places that got him labeled as a partier.  Where Jesus, went, there was a lot of fun happening.  Jesus expects us to have fun as we gather together, fun as we had as we gathered for brunch, as we had as the children were out looking for Easter eggs, as we are supposed to have when we come into worship; but especially as we come to the Lord’s Supper, as we celebrate it; because it is a joyous meal.  This is a joyous time.  But so often we come because we have to.  In one of the Sunday morning comic strips today, “For Better or For Worse”, I think it’s a granddaughter that went with the grandparents today to church, and it was a wondrous service, much like ours has been today with wonderful music, lots of people and all those kinds of things, and as they are leaving, the little girl is saying, “You know, is the church open other Sundays, or is it just open on Christmas and Easter?” because she would like to come more often when it is that joyful. We want people to want to come.  Jesus wants this to be a place where we hear good news, where we are re-awakened and re-enlivened, where we come to new life and new birth through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 It’s not what we normally expect because a lot of the time we come like the women; because we are expecting it to be, well, we’ve got to be there because I’m an usher, I’m in the choir, I do this, I do that; but we’re not expecting to actually meet our God.  We’re not actually expecting to meet our Lord and Savior when we come; and to have him be alive, and say, “Go and tell; go and do; go and be my people out in the world.  But that’s the Easter message!  Jesus comes when we least expect it, and says that we are to be the ones who are looking for the Son rising.  We are those who are supposed to be telling others, “That’s where the Son is; that’s where the Son is rising.  That’s where we need to be in God’s name.  Along the way, we need to support one another and strengthen one another for we, just like the early Church, need those words of comfort back and forth that remind us again that Jesus indeed is risen.  So again, I ask you to respond:

He is risen!

He is risen, indeed!

Amen

We need those times when we come and feel again God’s presence in our midst, when we see it in our young people, when we see it in the new life that comes alive in us when we see again Jesus, arisen.  But we also need to support one another, to strengthen one another,  to come together in worship and song and now in affirming out faith, as I invite you to affirm our faith together using the Apostle’s Creed as found on page 14 in your hymnals.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth

 and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended into Hell.  The third day He rose again from the dead

And ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints,

The forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, And the life everlasting. 

Amen